Trivia / Robin of Sherwood

• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Michael Praed left the show when he was offered a part in Dynasty (1981), resulting in Robin being Killed Off for Real at the start of the third season and Jason Connery taking up the mantle.
• California Doubling: England doubled for England, just not the same bits of it. Sherwood Forest was mostly represented by a wood outside Bristol, Nottingham Castle by various northern castles and Wells Cathedral, and other locations were scattered across the country, mostly in the north and west.
• The Danza: In the first season, minor outlaw Martin is played by Martin West.
• Dawson Casting: Queen Isabella in "The Pretender" is explicitly noted to be 12 years old. Cory Pulman was 23 at the time of the episode.
• Dueling Works:
  • The show was scheduled directly against the Colin Baker era of Doctor Who for the teatime-adventure audience... and, in what was seen as a major sign of that era's dubious quality, regularly trounced it in the ratings.
  • Also with Crossbow. Sherwood came out three years earlier, and because episodes were an hour long, the individual episode plots were more sophisticated. However, Crossbow has more serialisation. They share DNA, as Anthony Horowitz created Crossbow and wrote for this series. Also, Robert Addie played villainous Sir Guy of Gisbourne in this series, and villainous Arris in Crossbow.
• Follow the Leader: The series lead to an explosion of Robin Hood media in the late 80s and early 90s, ranging from other TV series, variety of movies, anime and what not. All of those were borrowing left and right from the series, rather than any prior incarnation of Robin Hood.
• Fountain of Expies: Nasir led to the creation of similar characters in several subsequent Robin Hood retellings, either due to a desire to make the cast more ethnically diverse or just because the later creators assumed that he was a traditional character.
  • Mark Ryan got into the act himself when he once co-wrote a Green Arrow Time Travel story that was a homage to the series, wherein Black Canary met Robin (naturally a lookalike of Green Arrow) and his band, including one "Rassan".
• He Also Did: Mark Ryan (Nasir) voices Bumblebee in the Transformers Film Series titles handled by Michael Bay.
• Life Imitates Art: In an example which would probably make Richard Carpenter spin in his grave, a neo-pagan neo-Nazi groupuscule were reported to be claiming the series' "hooded man" prophecy as a real ancient myth and their inspiration.
• The Other Darrin: Baron de Belleme's girlfriends were recast in "The Enchantment", probably because they had to do some plot-relevant acting instead of sitting around looking hot.
• Real-Life Relative: Edward of Wickham's son Matthew is played by Jeremy Bulloch's real son Robert. According to DVD extras, many of the child extras were real children of the cast and crew.
• Referenced by...: according to Mercedes Lackey, Michael Praed as Robin was the inspiration for the character description of Vanyel Ashkevron. The cover of Magic's Promise (second book in the trilogy) looks so much like Praed that it could actually be a straight-out portrait.
• Throw It In!:
  • An on-set accident in which Robert Addie's horse clashed heads with Jeremy Bulloch during a take was included in the finished show, reframed as a deliberate Kick the Dog moment on Guy's part.
  • During the filming of the quarterstaff fight between Robert of Huntingdon and Little John, Clive Mantle accidentally really hit Jason Connery over the head. Again, the blow was included in the finished show.
  • De Rainault's assessment of Philip Mark as a "posturing catamite" was supposedly an ad lib.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Paul McGann auditioned for Robin after Michael Praed left, but was considered too short.
  • Alan-a-Dale was intended to be a recurring character, but the production team and regular cast considered the actor's performance to be very poor.
  • A pitch for a Sequel Series set ten years later had Michael Praed's Robin Back from the Dead or Not Quite Dead.
  • There was supposed to be a fourth season but the series was discontinued. There were serious plans for this to include Guy killing Marion in order to ignite the final conflict (Something which eventually did happen in the later BBC Robin Hood, to very controversial effect).
• Word of Gay: According to a DVD interview with Richard Carpenter, original Merry Men Tom the Fletcher and Dickon were a gay couple. Unfortunately, they were the ones who got killed off in the second episode.
• Word of Saint Paul: According to Ray Winstone, Will Scarlet regularly used to go off and rob people on his own and not give the money to the poor, with the incident in "The Children of Israel" not being very unusual.

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